


The one with the messages hunt

by akachankami



Series: Shippers Anonymous [24]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akachankami/pseuds/akachankami
Summary: Prompt:With the family away at a garden party, he leaned back in his chair, enjoying the muted sounds of servants and maids scurrying to and fro. His gazed focused on a scrap of paper tacked to the doorjamb, "Follow the Signs". Moving into the empty hall he noticed another scrap, and another, leading him deep into the Abbey as he collected them. The curious quirk to his brow turned to a deep scowl when he saw light flickering from what should have been a locked door.





	The one with the messages hunt

Frowning, he leaned in, trying to pick up any sound from inside the room. He only heard rustling of clothes and the flickering of the light trough the door told him someone was indeed waiting on the other side.

Oh he knew who it was, alright! He'd recognized the writing right away but why would she summon him in the linens cupboard through a game of clues was anyone's guess…

And so he opened the door without knocking, readying his reprimanding tone: "Miss Baxter," he addressed the lady's maid inside. And then stopped abruptly as the woman in question turned to the door with a startled expression, mussed up hair and dress, still tangled in her lover's arms.

All three of them stalled for a few seconds, letting an embarrassing silence fill the hallway as the butler's cheeks turned crimson.

"You didn't collect the paper coming up, did you?" the lady's maid asked Mr Molesley, flame red eartips but otherwise white as a sheet, still holding her close as if his life depended on it. She only shrugged and clucked her tongue at his inintelligible mumbling of an apology.

"Mr Carson?" All three of them jumped at the sound of a fourth voice coming from the end of the hallway and this time maid and footman regained possession of their respective limbs and smoothed their clothes before the housekeeper could see them. "May I help with the linens?"

Charles cleared his throat, tuned off the lights and closed the door too hurriedly to look smooth, leaning against it for good measure. "I think… I must have misplaced my reading glasses," he invented on the spot, too embarrassed by what he'd just witnessed to even try and start an argument about propriety "but sure enough they're not here."

Elsie smiled indulgently at him and took a key out of her bundle. "Good thing you couldn't find them then," she chuckled as his eyes grew wide watching her lock the door with a resounding clank "it wouldn't do to see what a mess the cupboard is at the moment!" He could swear she'd winked at him but it was such an improbable event he deared believe he'd dreamed it.

Charles frown deepened as she fumbled with her keys and dropped the recently used one to the floor,  _accidentally_  nudging it under the door.

"My, my… what a scatterbrain," she giggled "but i won't need it till after dinner," she added loud enough for whoever might have been on the other side to hear. "How about tea, Mr Carson?" Elsie offered then along with her hand.

He nodded, still unable to utter words, but a distant thought was already forming in his clouded, shocked mind, something about Molesley and silver polishing in his half-day off for a whole month to come…


End file.
